Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) denounced Kerry’s move on the Senate floor and sought the intervention of the minority leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.). The Republican leader appealed to the Defense Department to provide an aircraft for DeMint’s trip and the Pentagon agreed to do so, according to the South Carolina senator’s office.

Senators put holds on nominees and bills all the time. It’s not an attractive aspect of the Senate that an individual senator can block action by using such holds, but it’s what they do up there in the Senate. In fact, Senator Kerry wasn’t above using a hold or a threat of a hold when he didn’t like something that the Bush administration was doing as he did back in 2006. When he was senator, Obama did it too. What is different is trying to use his position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee to exact revenge on a senator who is putting a hold that the chairman doesn’t like.

Fortunately, Kerry’s power play didn’t work. DeMint is getting his trip to Honduras because Mitch McConnell stepped in. John Kerry would benefit himself from some on-the-ground research on what has been going on in Honduras. But he’d rather stake out a position without researching for himself what happened with the ouster of Zelaya. Do other senators really agree that a chairman can try to block other senators’ overseas trips if they’re angry about that senator using one of their prized senatorial privileges? The Democrats should remember that what goes around comes around. One day they will be in the minority. Do they want to endorse John Kerry’s precedent of how to use his power as chairman?

In other Honduras newsBrazil named a new ambassador to Honduras (h/t Dick), since the prior ambassador was on vacation since before Zelaya was ousted. It’ll be interesting to see how the embassy acommodates his arrival while Zelaya’s there, exhorting his supporters to revolt on his behalf.

Bishop Pineda has acted as the mediator between President Roberto Micheletti and ex-president Manuel Zelaya this past week, so he is in the best position to know whether it will be accepted by both. He was confidant that Hondurans are able to sit around the negotiating table and come to a Honduran solution themselves. OAS Special Adviser John Biehl also has said that he found a strong willingness for dialogue.

The plan is that President Micheletti and ex-president Zelaya will each select 2-3 honorable and responsible representatives. The Unión Civicá Democrática (the association of civic groups) and the “Resistencia” will each also select 2-3 representatives. An international mediator will be selected.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina), a member of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Senate Steering Committee, announced that he will lead a delegation of U.S. Congressmen to Honduras today. The group will include U.S. Representatives Peter Roskam (R-Illinois), Aaron Schock (R-Illinois), and Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado). They plan to meet with Honduran President Roberto Micheletti, members of the Honduran Supreme Court, election officials, and Honduran business and civic leaders.

It is really funny to read what John Kerry said in the OAS emergency meeting on Honduras:

“America values its longstanding partnership with Honduras, but a push to rewrite the constitution over the objections of Honduras’s top court, legislature, attorney general, and military is deeply disturbing.”

Kerry himself proves the necessity of traveling to Honduras to better understand the “disturbing” situation.